Sustainability report card for Metro Vancouver

Report Card Metro Vancouver 2008

While the daily headlines may suggest an irreversible slide toward global extinction, a trio of reports offer a glimmer of hope for Metro Vancouver.

Metro Vancouver, the Fraser Basin Council and the Vancouver Foundation all released their annual report cards on the region’s progress toward sustainability, and the consensus is that Vancouver is a very bright child with considerable promise, but isn’t applying itself.

The Vancouver Foundation’s “Vital Signs 2008” examines the statistics and the popular perceptions behind the issues that are shaping our region. More than 1,000 “citizen graders” gave Metro Vancouver a letter grade for each of 12 sustainability indicators.

The good news is, no Fs, and decent grades for arts and culture (B), learning (B-) and health and wellness (B-). The not-so-good news: social indicators fared poorly, with the gap between rich and poor earning a D, and housing at the bottom of the pack, with a D-.

Metro Vancouver’s “Sustainability Report” is more purely statistical, aiming to set a quantifiable benchmark and measure progress for Metro’s Sustainable Region Initiative.

Some surprising good news: per-capita water consumption in peak periods actually fell 40 per cent from 1987 to 2007 – from 1,395 to 845 litres; and the amount of land farmed in the region increased slightly from 1996 to 2006 – from 39,676 hectares to 41,035 hectares.

Among the bad news: solid waste generated per capita is trending upward, from 0.6 tonnes in 1998 to 0.8 tonnes in 2006; and the sea level is rising at a rate of two centimetres every 50 years.

The Fraser Basin Council’s 2009 State of the Fraser Basin Report, “Sustainability Snapshot 4,” measures progress toward sustainability in the five regions of the Fraser River watershed, according to 18 criteria. It highlights key developments under each topic, and assesses a grade from one to four, ranging from “poor/getting worse” to “good/getting better.”

The good news: we’re improving. The region scored an overall grade of 65 per cent last year, compared to 60 per cent in 2007. Air quality scored particularly high, with three “good/getting better” grades, while Aboriginal and non-aboriginal relations rated particularly poorly, due to persistent differences in health indicators and the number of aboriginal children in the care of the province.

Fraser Basin chair Charles Jago sums up this year’s assessment as “mixed results,” concluding that “on the journey to sustainability, we are doing certain things better, but we still have a long way to go.”